The cabin of Merc's new E-Class is basically an awesome home cinema

This is your first look at the interior of the all-new, fifth-generation Mercedes E-Class, which will debut – along with the outside of the car, thankfully – at the Detroit Motor Show in January.

And the big news is that it’s packing more screen-space than your local IMAX. In front of the driver lurks not one, but two adjacent 12.3-inch screens, merging to effectively create a giant widescreen display.

It’s a fully configurable set-up, from which the driver can choose between three designs: Classic, Sport and Progressive. Mercedes hasn’t yet confirmed whether you’ll be able to stream big-screen blockbusters across the entire display, but we live in hope of a near-lifesize Jennifer Lawrence striding across the E's dash in the near future.

The E-Class’s other big trick is a touchscreen steering wheel. Well, sort of. Alongside the infotainment and phone control buttons on either side of the steering wheel lurk a couple of dinky touch-sensitive pads, allowing the driver to control the infotainment system with smartphone-style vertical and horizontal swipes. As in the C-Class, there’s a touchpad on the centre console too.

Other goodies include, naturally, a vast Burmester sound system with all of the watts, much leather, and LED ‘ambient lighting’ with the option of 64 cabin colours.

They’re all wrapped up in what looks to be mighty swish cabin, taking plenty of inspiration from the super-lux S-Class. Which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise : the new E promises to be just about as large as – and even posher than – the S-Class of a generation or two ago.

We know it’ll get a new generation of four-cylinder diesels, along with Merc’s favourite six-cylinder petrols and a plug-in hybrid. There will, of course, be an E63 AMG in due course, likely making a healthy 600bhp or more.

Less oversteerily, the new E will also get the option of headlights ‘reminiscent of stardust, the Milky Way or the glow of the jet engine’, according to Mercedes. These use tiny, irregular reflectors in the lenses of the tail lamps to warp the glow of the LED in new and strange directions.

Excited for the new E? Or are you more a 5-Series sort?